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Vampire Weekend – Step 12″ (Record Store Day 2015)

Record Store Day (RSD) 2015 was my worst yet. Typically I arrive about three hours before my local store opens and I’m usually no more than 20 people back, having no problems getting everything I want. This year, because of the Brand New – Deja Entendu re-press I decided to get to the store even earlier, anticipating a clusterf*ck because of the Deja release. Boy was I wrong in how early I should have gotten there. Even though I lined up five hours before opening, two hours earlier than I usually do, I was the 55th person in line, more than double where I usually am in line. How do I know where I was in line you ask? Simple; my local store is insanely organized when it comes to RSD. They keep all the RSD releases alphabetized and categorized by format (7″, 10″, LP, CD, tape, box set) behind a counter they set up just for RSD, have it set up menu style where you tell them what you want and they get it for you, only let a handful of people in the store (RSD area) at a time and they hand out numbered pieces of paper like a deli in a supermarket based on line order to make sure nobody further back in line gets RSD releases ahead of anyone because they have four or five different employees getting releases.

So to sum up, I got to the store earlier than ever before, was further back in line than ever before for my effort and didn’t get three releases that I wanted. Considering in the six previous RSD’s I’ve attended I only didn’t get one release over that entire span, not getting three in one year is a horrible swing. To be fair though, I bought one of the releases I missed online from Bull Moose. I found out from talking to people in the store and some employees that people started lining up at 5 pm on the day before (Friday) RSD, with the bulk of people getting the Deja RSD exclusive lining up by 11:30 pm the day before. No way will I ever line up that early for anything non-life essential.

A release that my store sold out of but plenty of others had copies leftover was the Vampire Weekend – Step 12″. This single/EP was originally tabbed to be released in early February 2015, but was first delayed, then apparently cancelled, then pushed back to be a RSD release.

There are some questions about the pressing info for the Step 12″. Some people think there are two separate pressings; a U.S. one and a Euro one. I can debunk theory, as the catalog and bar code numbers match between both so-called separate pressings. Everything about them is identical. Just because something gets released in two different countries or regions does not mean there are two, separate pressings.

However, where there is some real questions are the official pressing info given by the official RSD lists, both the U.S. and UK. The U.S. list says there are 3,000 copies, and the UK list says there are 500 copies. So one of two things happened; either the UK got 500 of the 3,000 copies, leaving 2500 copies for the U.S, or there are 3500 copies pressed in total. No matter what the truth is, all copies were pressed on white vinyl.